It really bothers me when people are mean to maintenance workers or others who they feel are “beneath” them. Due to my dad’s illness, I have been spending more time in Toronto than my actual home of Halifax. That means I have been going into the office rather than working remotely (yay).

We have a regular cleaning lady on our floor who comes in to empty the garbage bins at the same time each day. She doesn’t speak much English, so we “trade.” She teaches me something in Spanish, and I teach her something in English or Russian (depends on her mood, lol). We have been doing this for awhile and it literally takes 5 minutes at most.

We moved to a new shared office space where our offices are divided in two (the cleaning lady is the same because it’s just a new floor, not building). My coworker actually just said, “why are you wasting time talking to her?” while she was still in our office. I don’t see the point of being mean to people for no reason but a lot of people are :-

@MrsPanda99: I know all the maintenance workers by name and acknowledge them just as I would anyone else. It irks me how some people are so darn disrespectful. I want to say to them “don’t think this employee is equally important? From now on clean your own damn toilets and let your trash bins overflow.”

i am always nice to everyone regardless of their job. they need money to pay bills and so do i. just because we have different jobs doesn’t mean someone who cleans or does maintenance work is beneath me. it drives me nuts when people act as if they are worthless. i make it a point to talk to the janitors at the school i work at. they are always the sweetest people and it’s so hard to see other teachers treat them badly.

I make a point to always at least say hello, acknowledge, or at least smile and wave to all of our maintenance workers. I try and learn their names and a little about them so that I can ask them how their kids/husband/wife/dog is doing.

I find that a lot of times they are more interesting than my direct co-workers, and many have such interesting stories to tell.

@Aquaria: I agree. The money is clean, the work is necessary, and they are almost always nice people. In fact, they work harder than most of us and get paid less. I just don’t understand what people get out of making others feel bad. They are part of the company too.

I smoke, as do most of the maintenance workers so I always see them outside on my smoke breaks and have a chat.

I figure you should judge people on their character not their job, some of my best friends are maintenance workers of labourers. Also many of the will surprise you. One of my friends currently earns £20k as a building labourer but previously earnt hundred of thousands as a merchant banker and played rugby for London Irish (good Rugby team), you would never know it to look at him, but when you start talking to people you realise there is normally more to them than appearances

I actually find myself more nice to maintenance people than I do the people I actually work with, haha. Their jobs are harder than mine – and they have to put up with a lot of crap (sometimes literally!). Therefore I will always go out of my way to say they are doing a great job or I appreciate what they do.

I am always friendly to the guy that empties the trash here every day but I am starting to seriously hate him. He smokes a lot and has that really awful overpowering stale cigarette smell about him. My nose has gotten really powerful in late pregnancy and so every time he comes in my office for twenty seconds to empty the trash, he leaves that awful smell behind for the rest of the day. Now I like the other guy a lot more!!!

@MrsPanda99: Darling Husband is a maintenance worker. Y’know the “lower” man who makes sure the vents are working properly so you don’t suffocate, rescues people if they get stuck in the elevator, gets to work 2 hours before you to inspect each and every exit sign daily to make sure you get out safely in case of a fire, installs the sinks, toilets, soap dispensers, and drinking fountains, inspects and repairs the air conditioning and heating, etc… He’s been electrocuted and fallen off ladders so you can have a safer, more comfortable place to sit in front of a computer and make more money than him. He does this along with the other behind-the-scenes no names… the janitors, the landscapers, the painters and everyone else so many people ignore and take for granted.

@Aquaria: Does he experience rude people at work? It would be interesting to hear first hand experiences. A lot of people don’t measure success and their value through their paycheques. It makes life a lot easier but it doesn’t mean they are good people or living right. Our society gets things all wrong sometimes.

@iarebridezilla: I hate smelling smoke on people. We have a guy at work who smokes cigars…he goes downstairs for 45 minutes and comes back reeking. I am very sensitive to smoke and I find it absolutely gag worthy to smell it all day. You should get an air freshener or leave the garbage can in the hallway to be *helpful*

I would never be mean to anybody. I used to clean houses and also work as a bartender, I know what it feels like when peple treat you like trash. I would never ever do that to another human being, be it a homeless person, cleaning lady or a movie star. Just no.

@MrsPanda99: oh, absolutely. In fact he’s giving his 2 weeks notice on Monday and starting a new job on the 26th for that very reason. He says people don’t understand that you can’t adjust the temperature of the air that comes out of the vent above each separate cubicle (seriously, people really ask him to do this). And he is in awe of how disgustingly filthy the women’s restrooms are compared to the men’s. He’s always getting calls about clogged sinks and what not. The women complain that there’s something wrong with the plumbing, when really it’s because they’re brushing their hair over the sink and it’s clogging the drain. Or they’re flushing pads down the toilet. So he has to go in and disassemble that nasty plumbing, while the women bitch about the restroom closest to them being locked and having to use the one down the hall instead.